“She's been up all night,” Mina said.
Everyone crowded around them, murmuring. Sage’s Uncle Ellis squeezed her shoulder.
“Took her where?” Sage hissed at Mina. “Where did Khain take her?”
Mina didn’t answer.
Ellis answered. “To the Pravus. He took her to the Pravus.”
Sage couldn’t feel her face. Her heart threatened to burst from her chest. “For how long?” she whispered weakly.
Mina knelt in front of her, tears leaking. “All day yesterday. We got her back last night.”
Last night?!Sage was frantic to know exactly what had happened. She tried to look Paisley in the face. “What did he do to you?”
“Nothing mama.” Her head drooped. “I went to the Meadow. My daddy took me to the Meadow in the middle of the day…”
Sage was confused. Paisley didn't know her father—that asshole had abandoned them both before Paisley was even born.
“Herdaddy,” Sage whispered, then she looked around the circle at family staring back. “She doesn’t mean Khain!”
“No,” Mina assured her. “She doesn’t. She had a dream, that’s all.” She looked around at everyone, as if looking for support. “It seems like she slept through the entire thing.”
“Slept through it…how could she sleep through it?”
“Magic,” Ellis said, and they all knew what that meant:Nana was involved.
“And then Crew Arcoal went into the Pravus and got her,” Ellis said, his voice soft and full of awe.
Sage looked straight ahead and saw nothing. Her thoughts protested with a wild, ongoing desperate scream. “No,” she said, feeling broken. “No…” More tears burst forth, and Paisley squirmed in her arms as Sage hugged her too damn tight.Why? Why? Why? Why was this their life?
Mina cried at Sage’s tears, and Frannie cried at Mina’s and then they were all crying, holding Sage who held Paisley—
Abigail White, Sage’s complex, powerful, and sometimes infuriatingNana, appeared in the middle of the room, her freaky stole around her shoulders. A few people gasped. Several backed away from her. Frannie ducked under the table.
“Touching,” Nana said. “But now—”
Sage didn’t let her finish the sentence. She broke free from all the family around her and stalked toward Nana, holding Paisley’s head on her shoulder, covering Paisley’s ear with her hand.
“I thought she was protected while I was in treatment,” she hissed.
“She is protected. The demon didn’t know what he had or she’d be dead.”
Sage looked around wildly. “You call that protected? He just took her!”
“Mina’s moving up to the Inn. It won’t happen up here.”
“I want her to come with me to treatment.”
“How does that make it safer, Little Miss? You’re unconscious.”
Sage knew she was right, and even if she wasn’t, she couldn’t save Paisley if Khain showed up. She wasn’t strong, shecouldn’t shift or go dim. All she could do was run or be captured ordie.
“What if she goes out of Serenity? She could go to my mom’s.”
Nana smirked. “Who’s going to take her? Not you, because ofyour Tether.”
Sage didn’t back down. Paisley was Nana’s favorite, and Nana had to be freaking out, too, even if she didn’t show it.
